This Week’s Bounty

October 8, 2009

Inked by april

With this week’s box, I didn’t mince words. The goods came home, had some pictures taken of them and then VEGGIE DEATH. For a select few, mainly some bok choy, the lemon grass, and a few of the chilies, usage was imminent.

Bok Choy, tomatoes, summer squash, winter squash, basil, lemon grass, eggplant, onions, poblano peppers, bell peppers

What’d I make? A Frankenstein creation. It mixed what I was craving and a modified 101 Cookbooks recipe called A Luxurious and Deeply Aromatic Noodle Dish. Turned into a curry of sorts. With rice. It was very tasty but no, not perfect. This is a recipe that needs further tweaking. Good thing you use only half the paste you start with! I’ll update later with the results of a next attempt.

A Luxurious and Deeply Aromatic Noodle Rice Dish

From Nigel Slater, modified vegetarian version by Heidi of 101 Cookbooks, further adapted into a curry by Moi

For the spice paste:
Chilies – 4 or 5 small, hot red ones
Garlic – 2 or 3 small cloves
Ginger – a small lump, about the size of a walnut in its shell
Lemon grass – 2 or 3 plump stalks
Coriander seeds – a few
Coriander leaves – a few (hs note: cilantro for all you non-brits)
Ground tumeric – a teaspoon
vegetable oil – a little

For the broth:
Stock – vegetable, 500 ml
Coconut milk – 400ml (lite is ok)
1 medium bok choy, roughly chopped
1 shallot, thinly sliced
2 small potatoes, diced
1 carrot, sliced
1/2 bell pepper, thickly chopped
A lime – just the juice
Salt
Soy sauce
Mint – a small handful of leaves

To finish:

Halve and seed the chilies. Peel the garlic. Peel and shred the ginger. Finely slice the tender, innermost leaves of the lemon grass. Grind the coriander seeds or crush them in a mortar. Blitz it all to a thick paste in a food processor with the coriander leaves and any well scrubbed roots, plus the turmeric. You may need a few tablespoons of vegetable oil to help it go round but add as little as you can.

Place a wok over moderate heat, add half the spice paste (keep the other half in the fridge for tomorrow) and fry it, moving it round the pan, for a minute or so, then pour in the stock, coconut milk, and a splash of soy sauce — let it come to the boil. Turn the heat down, add the vegetables from longest cooking time (potatoes) to shortest (bok choy leaves) allowing each to soften before adding the next. Add salt to taste.

Serve each portion with a ladle over 1 cup prepared rice in a bowl. Sprinkle with mint leaves to garnish.

Future modifications:

As you can see above, the finished product was REALLY soupy. I’d recommend omitting the stock and using only coconut milk OR halving this stock/coconut milk mixture. It may also require you dissolving a bit of corn starch in cold water and slowly adding to the broth, as thickening agent. I also found that with the addition of the vegetables and rice, it required QUITE a bit more salt.

Final verdict:

DELICIOUS! The curry base was absolutely incredible. Also note, I’m calling it a curry but I don’t really know if it was. It’s a spicy broth with cooked veggies over rice. Overall A+.

Posted in Food and tagged 101 cookbooks, CSA, curry, eatwell, local, Nigel Slater, produce, recipe, rice, spicy.